Sympathy for a Demon
by Insidious Jazz
Summary: Demon!Dean. I took some liberties with Supernatural lore but I call that artistic license. This is set between seasons 9 and 10 in an alternate timeline where being a demon was a lot harder for Dean.


Being a demon was just as miserable an experience as Dean had always imagined. Sure, what little inhibitions he'd once had as a human were all gone which provided him a certain kind of morbid freedom. This did nothing to stop the pitch black emptiness he could feel growing inside him. Ruby had once told him that many demons forget their human lives, he was beginning to suspect that those were the lucky ones. Better to forget what it was like to feel something real.

Crowley had dragged him from one sickening slaughter to next, always trying one up his last attempt to make his old nemesis truly irredeemable. Dean didn't care, he killed and tortured without remorse, those were the perks of being a demon. Working for Crowley had certainly been a new experience but it quickly proved repetitive. Once you've seen one massacre you've seen them all.

At the end of the day, he still remembered the life he'd once had. He remembered his brother, his father, Bobby and all the trials and tribulations of living a mortal life with a conscience and real consequences to his actions. Turning back wasn't an option though. He wasn't capable of loving Sammy the way he had as a human and if his little brother found out about his recent misdeeds, it would be Sam's duty as a hunter to kill him. That's not to say that there was any way forward for him either. He'd be stuck in this half-life forever, more than mortal but less than human.

All these thoughts raced through his mind as he took in the dingy Nevada bar he found himself in. The smell of sweat and stale beer permeated the establishment, the lighting was worse than shit and a flickering neon sign on the wall displayed the bar's name: "Lewie's". An old jukebox in the corner was playing "Didn't Know Yet What I'd Know When I Was Bleedin'". What a perfect hellhole.

He reached the bottom of his glass in one large swig. There wasn't a whole lot of people around. Figures, places like this didn't exactly draw in large crowds. Some Hell's Angels were hanging out around a pool table, a greasy old trucker sat passed out in the booth next to his and the morbidly obese bartender was cleaning vomit off the floor.

Suddenly he noticed a woman sitting at the bar, looking more out of place than a clown at a funeral. He hadn't seen her come in but once he spotted her it was hard to take his eyes off her. He couldn't see her face but her golden brown locks and skin-tight black dress was more than enough to entice him.

Summoning up the proper amount of swagger, he made it over to the stool next to her. "What are you having?" She looked at him dismissively at first but then realization dawned on both of their faces. Her grey-green eyes and aura of cockiness were all too familiar. For a moment, the surprised look on her face betrayed her shock but she regained her composure a lot quicker than him. Before he knew it, she had her trademark feline smile plastered on her face. Dean managed to stammer out "Bela?"

"That has to be the best pickup line I've ever heard, Dean. I'm glad to see you're as smooth as ever."

He shot her an annoyed glare. "You're supposed to be dead".

"I could say the same thing of you, I guess we're both full of surprises." Her eyes suddenly flickered and she had the red eyes of a crossroads demon.

Bela, the crossroads demon - few things made more sense. "Figures. I'm betting you got off that rack and started torturing people pretty freakin' fast."

She shrugged in what was meant to look like indifference but Dean couldn't help but detect a hint of regret on her face. "I wasn't about to suffer a day more than I had to. Unlike yourself, I never deluded myself into thinking that I'm a hero." She took a sip of her drink and continued. "Not that you're one to talk. From what I've heard, you've been a very naughty boy of late."

It's not like she didn't have point. As much as he hated to admit it, the days of him looking down on her in righteous indignation were long gone. He wasn't about to admit it to her face though. Better to change the subject. "I see you were too vain to let go of your old meat suit."

"What can I say, I'm a sentimentalist. With all the memories I have with this body I simply wouldn't feel at home anywhere else, so I pulled some strings and viola!" Bela drank the last of her gin or vodka, he couldn't tell which. She bit down on an ice cube and crushed it between her strong white teeth. To Dean, the sound of it completely drowned out the clatter and clack of pool balls coming together and the voice of Dax Riggs on the jukebox. He imagined their mouths working furiously against each other, their jaws unhinged like snakes.

He manufactured a chuckle and looked at her hesitantly. "Yeah, I get that. How much do you remember exactly?"

Bela squirmed in her seat and looked everywhere except at Dean, she clearly found the question unsettling. "How much to I remember of what? My last birthday party? The lyrics to "My Heart Will Go On"?"

"You know what I mean." It was the same old bullshit. Bela had always had a smug facade that he had never completely believed in. He could see even more cracks in it now.

There was a long pause. It probably wasn't that long, but it felt like an eternity. "Here's a tip for being a demon: don't dwell on the past. Then again, masochism always was one of your many charms."

Dean shook his head in regret. "Believe me sweetheart, I'd leave it all behind if I could. If only it were that easy."

She didn't respond. She just sat there with a melancholy look on her face as "Beat the Devil's Tattoo" came on the jukebox. The fact that opening up to her even crossed his mind was evidence enough that he had hit rock bottom. Fuck it, it's not like he could sink any lower.

"It's like… everything is muted. I know what it's like for things to matter but I can't actually experience it anymore. It's a frickin' nightmare that I keep waking up into." It came out more desperate than he had intended but strangely he didn't seem to care.

Bela hesitated for a moment, then sighed in capitulation. "I know. Most of my human life was wasted but even being on the rack in hell was better than this."

There was an unmistakable relief in her eyes, like she'd been longing for someone to say those words. The feeling was mutual. Meeting his gaze, she continued. "You're the first demon I've met to ever acknowledge this, you know."

Despite the weight that had been lifted, there was another weight bearing down even harder. The need and the hunger for what was missing, for intimacy. "You think we're the only ones who feel this way?"

She didn't need to think hard about her reply. "Maybe, or everyone else just don't want to think about it."

Dean coughed out a sad chuckle. "Maybe they're the smart ones."

She tilted her head and gave him a cryptic look. "Probably." She slipped off the bar stool in one smooth motion. "It won't solve anything, but maybe it will help." She walked away, past the Hell's Angels and the struggling bartender. Dean watched her as she pushed past the swing of the bathroom doors. It didn't take long for him to follow her, like a sparrow answering her mating call. He put his hand on the cold metal handle of the bathroom door and pushed.

The bathroom was two stalls and a single sink with a frame above it holding a busted mirror. The place smelled of horrible decisions. He didn't care. This wasn't about feeling good. Bela was inside the closest stall. The door wouldn't lock, but they didn't care. She had her back turned to him. He caught a brief glimpse of her face when she looked over her shoulder, the wet splash of her lips framed by the toss of her long brown hair. He wanted her to turn around but suspected that she was teasing him. Perhaps this wasn't unexpected from her, but didn't she want what he wanted, or at least something close enough?

She didn't look back again, she just planted her feet on each side of the toilet and put her hands on the slick tile wall. Dean didn't need any further invitation. She flinched when she heard his belt buckle striking the porcelain toilet seat, which made him hesitate. The hesitation didn't last very long though.

Right before he finished, Bela arched her back toward him and reached for his face. She pulled him toward her, putting her mouth all over the side of his face and eventually his lips. An objective observer could have been forgiven for thinking that she wanted to consume him and for him to do the same for her. It was actually quite the opposite. In the end, she didn't get either of those things.

Bela shoved him against the stall wall and pushed past him. Realizing that both of them had failed to deliver on whatever it was that they had wanted from each other, Dean pulled his pants up. "I need to see you again." Bela barked out a loud, hysterical laugh that made his ears ring before disappearing from the bathroom. He went after her, past the rock music emanating from the jukebox and the bartender who had started an argument with the Hell's Angels over their tab. It wasn't until the parking lot that he lost her in the hot confusion of the Nevada desert, leaving him alone on the concrete island outside Lewie's.

That night Dean got a hold of a big bottle of holy water. Without hesitation, he swallowed every drop. Each gulp was pure torture and by the end, he was writhing around on the floor in pain. There was no light at the end of the tunnel, only another tunnel just like the last one. Tomorrow wouldn't be a better day, in fact it would probably be worse. Dean got up in search for another bottle of holy water.

Better to feel pain than nothing at all.

The End.


End file.
